If you’re a regular Hayride reader you knew about this a while ago, as we had a piece last month which touched on it, but there have been accusations made that Rick Edmonds, who’s running in a crowded field against Blake Miguez, Chauna Banks, Stephen Wagley, Larry Davis, Monique Appeaning, Lindsay Garcia and Pat Forbes, among others, for the 6th District congressional seat which is open after the latest round of redistricting, has acted inappropriately around women at times.
As we said, it’s not that Edmonds, who is 70 years old, is a rapist or anything like that. He’s just, according to the accusations, a little… touchy-feely. Here’s how we described it, as told to us by people who’ve seen the described phenomena in person…
And now, something else has happened related to the fight over the candidates’ past and present sexual behavior. Because at a Republican Party meeting in Livingston Parish a few days ago, a conservative political activist stood up and accused Edmonds of what she called “groping,” at the Jeff Landry gubernatorial campaign launch party in 2023. Edmonds denied the accusation, but it was corroborated by three others who say they saw it. And there are other women who have corroborated the story noting similar incidents.
Some of this is exaggeration, but the gist of the accusations is that Edmonds will on occasion touch women in social settings, a hand on a hip for instance, while engaging in friendly conversation. So far as we know this has been harmless, but it’s been noted. It’s somewhat risky behavior with respect to another man’s wife.
None of which would be newsworthy but for the campaign’s involvement in accusations of bad sexual behavior made against an opponent.
Now there’s a Daily Mail piece out – the link is here; it’s behind a paywall – which goes into the gory details of this controversy. The gist is this…
A Republican candidate running for the US Congress has denied allegations that he groped a woman at a campaign event in 2023, after she confronted him during a party meeting last month. Abby Crosby, 55, accused Louisiana state Senator Rick Edmonds, 70, of grabbing her hips from behind and whispering in her ear at an event for Jeff Landry, then Louisiana’s attorney general, at the Texas Club in Baton Rouge on 9 August 2023.
Edmonds, a married Baptist minister seeking a seat in the House of Representatives, has described the allegation as “categorically false” and accused Crosby and his political rival, Blake Miguez, of fabricating it to damage his campaign.
The confrontation took place on 14 September at a Livingston Parish Republican Executive Committee endorsement meeting at the Carter Plantation golf course in Springfield, Louisiana. Video of the exchange was obtained by the Daily Mail.
During the meeting, Crosby challenged Edmonds over the alleged incident, asking: “Is that why you chose to grope me at an event for Jeff Landry at the Texas Club?”
Edmonds immediately denied the accusation, telling her it was “not even remotely close to any truth”.
Crosby told him that she had witnesses and said she had chased him after the alleged incident. Edmonds replied: “Well good, I wish that you would produce them, I’d be glad to answer any question at any time.”
She also told him she was a rape survivor and asked whether he understood how much the alleged contact had startled her.
Crosby told the Daily Mail that she had been standing on steps beside the stage with her husband and friends when Edmonds approached her from behind. “He got up in the left ear and I could feel his breath,” she said. “I couldn’t move and I’m thinking, do something, do something, and I couldn’t.”
She alleged that Edmonds grabbed her hips and whispered: “I want to thank you, for myself and all these men in here, for wearing this pink dress.”
As we understand it, Edmonds’ camp is going to sue Abby Crosby for defamation, which is what a political campaign does in response to something like this; those lawsuits almost never actually go anywhere and they’re forgotten as soon as the election is over. Still, this is the kind of salacious stuff you get when there’s a hotly-contested race where the ideology – there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the candidates on the Republican side as to how you could expect them to vote once they’re elected – can’t really separate the candidates a whole lot.
The natural inclination is to assume this is all Miguez’ doing, especially since there’s a PAC affiliated with Edmonds which opened the campaign slamming Miguez over a 20-year-old police report alleging he had sexually assaulted a woman he was dating; the allegation had been debunked months ago by the woman’s father, mother and brother, and it would seem like a bit of tit-for-tat that this would arise now. What we’re told is that’s not true – Abby and Brad Crosby are said to be in Larry Davis’ camp being from Livingston Parish.
Either way, this is regrettable. Not that Crosby isn’t entitled to tell her story; she certainly is. But we really need a high-energy, conservative congressman for the 6th District who’ll serve for a while, get to the point where he’s a committee chair and has some power, can help bring home some federal dollars for bridges and drainage and other infrastructure, and will help to move the House to the Right – whether in a small majority or a minority as the insane Left takes the midterm elections. We’re still not convinced the latter is going to happen; if it does, it’ll only be a two-year interregnum before the 2028 elections sweep the crazies out of that majority.
The point being, we want to make a long-term investment here and have it pay off in political power and ideological strength. Do we get that if we’re talking about who’s the most libertine candidate in the race?
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